Friday, November 18, 2005

They’re telling me autumn/fall in Tokyo isn’t as good this year. Being my first year here (after several years in western Japan) I don’t know. Seems plenty deep, colorful, effulgent, enough to me. I took a few more photos at my Friday Takushoku University today of what the season is offering. However the autumn/fall colors may compare with other years, the days this week have been comic strip blue, the nights velvet and diamond clear dark, and everything resigned, sighing with a smile on its rusty face, to summer’s slow decay.

(Click on images to enlarge)

The balder the trees the more fiery, insects land on you as if seeking solace, you find yourself walking up to people you’ve never had the urge to talk to before, and vice versa, and not only is the time between sunset and bedtime longer, it is more than before lacking in sound. No boys rev engines, no girls clap in jest, no bands of drinkers are out on the bridge sharing beers. It’s too cold, and darkness has put its foot down since about 4.30pm. This is the time for taking to the floor, for reviewing bold opinions formed in excesses of greenness and warmth. Boundaries are sharper and clearer now; things have to be reckoned again in what is now colder air.

The alternative: escape, has become an object: whether to stay - in effect, resign – or where to head for. I’m thinking of Portugal, via a few days in London. Warmth, revival, migration, temporary victory. Surely that body soaked in sweat just eight weeks ago wasn’t yours really. It feels like it’s always been chilly; memory alone retains hope of a warm return.